EXCLUSIVE: Calwell was tougher on Jewish refugees than the record suggests

DEBORAH STONE: But new research shows Jews sidestepped Australia’s 1950s restrictions; the number of arrivals was 33% higher than previously estimated

AUSTRALIA’S REPUTATION AS a haven for Jews after the Holocaust hides a shameful truth: federal authorities secretly and systematically discriminated against Jewish migrants.

But new research argues Jews effectively circumvented the restrictions and the number of Jews who made it to Australia was probably 33% higher than previously estimated.

An academic paper published by Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick, a historian at the Australia Catholic University, uncovers private memos and letters which address the number of Jewish migrants coming to Australia in the post-war period, concluding both that there were more efforts to keep Jews out than previously known, and that there were more Jews who got in.

A newly discovered memo hidden in the personal papers of post-war Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell suggests 22,000 to 23,000 Jewish migrants came to Australia in the period 1945-51.

Previous estimates, based on census figures and Jewish communal records, place the number of migrants at 16,000 to 17,000 but it has long been acknowledged that these figures miss many Jews who chose not to identify on public forms or in the community.

Calwell is remembered as a strong proponent of Australia’s immigration program and is revered by many Jewish families who received personal help from him bringing relatives from Europe.

But Fitzpatrick has discovered memos that reveal he was not as enthusiastic as the historical record suggests.

In 1947, the Secretary of the Commonwealth Ministry of Immigration, Sir Tasman Heyes, wrote in a memo: “the Minister desires that in approving of applications for the admission of non-British Europeans preference is, for the present, to be given to non-Jewish cases”.